Life Support
Essay Preview: Life Support
Report this essay
Life Support
The meaning of life is different for a lot of people. When it comes to people on life support, are they fulfilling the meaning of life? The appropriate time to pull the plug on someone in this kind of condition is very difficult to decide but I believe that when someone is lying in a bed and unresponsive they are not living anyway. Its as if their body is ready to die but people are keeping their soul trapped in their body. That is the appropriate time to take them off of life support.
Life support refers to the emergency treatments and techniques performed in an emergency situation in order to support life after the failure of one or more vital organs. There are many extreme cases in which this is performed. Life support replaces or supports a failing bodily function. When patients have curable or treatable conditions, life support is used temporarily until the illness or disease can be stabilized and the body can resume normal functioning. At times, the body never regains the ability to function without life support. However, there are some cases in which a person miraculously wakes up and can function again but this is very rare.
The appropriate time to pull the plug on someone on life support is when they are no longer fulfilling the meaning of life. Life isnt just about being alive and laying in a hospital bed, not able to respond or interact with the loved ones around you. It is also very difficult for those loved ones to be around. It can be very stressful. I also believe that if they are in such bad condition that they have to be on life support, they were meant to die anyway. However, many people believe that they could some day wake up but that could be months or even years before they do and some may never even wake up again. The family would waste a lot of precious hours out of their lives to be with someone who doesnt even know they are there. It is unfair to them and the person on life support probably wouldnt want them to do that anyway. They would want them to go out and live their lives to the fullest.
This can be a very difficult decision for many people considering the fact that they may wake up. They just have to sit down and asks themselves if it is really worth it. Especially if there is a very slim chance this could happen. There are miracles out there but they dont happen to everyone in that situation. The cost of keeping someone on life support is also very expensive. The cost ranges from 24,000 to 110,000 dollars and that does not include other complications that may happen. That is a lot of money that most people cannot afford.
Life support and pulling the plug is a very difficult decision. The time to take someone off of life support is when they no longer have the things that make life meaningful. Meaningful things like family and friends and being able to enjoy talking to them and the simple